


starcrossed losers

by aelescribe



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, One-Sided Nico di Angelo/Will Solace, Time Loop, the burning maze is ugly and unfortunately exists but it’s fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 06:57:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15480108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelescribe/pseuds/aelescribe
Summary: Jason's never been a fan of predetermination. At least he's not alone.





	starcrossed losers

**Author's Note:**

> totally inspired by @fuocogo on tumblr, who has some lovely art u should check out. also this is my first time writing 2nd person. just kinda happened on accident. enjoy!

The first time, summer freezes over. 

The cold creeps from your joints to your heart and stops all pulses you’ve ever heard, even stops your own, because Jason’s has stopped. You keel over and vomit breakfast all over the tile floor of the infirmary. You drop the tray in your hands, bandage rolls unwinding while you spill your guts. 

“Oh, gross,” mutters Will beside you, and pulls the curtain around a camper. All business, he mops it up and sits you down. No, Will, you haven’t been shadow travelling. Yes, Will, you’ve been eating (evidence is clinging to the mop strands). No, Will, you’re not lying when you say you don’t know what’s wrong. It’s not a cop out. 

He shines a light in your watery eyes, prods your ringing ears, and you think he’s only using a stethoscope to put his hands under your shirt but you’re not sure. 

“Jason is dead,” you say. Your breath hitches on his name like it always does. Will stops organizing his tools back into the cupboard for a second. “I felt it,” you say, and again, “He’s dead,” because Will doesn’t answer. 

“You need to get some rest,” is all he says. 

“He’s with your dad, isn’t he.” Your fists curl into the papery sheet of the cot, the wool he’s trying to yank over his eyes. “He went--” 

“Go to _sleep_ ,” he insists, flicking your forehead. You’re so tired you let it knock you back onto the pillow. When your glare doesn’t smooth over he sighs. “Listen, I’m sure everything’s fine. You probably just overworked yourself. Have you been sleeping well recently?” 

No, but you never have. He knows that, and you don’t bring it up now. You almost wish he’s right, just out of worry for Jason, but spite and truth wins out. “He’s _dead_ , Will.” 

“I know you miss him, Nico, but--” 

“Why can’t you believe me?” 

Will answers you with a lingering kiss that you twist away from. 

You wake up back in cabin thirteen with a hell of a headache. The obsidian grandfather clock beside your dresser tolls. Eight fifteen in the morning. You rub your eyes. Weird. Did Will take pity and bring you back to your cabin for proper rest? 

You’re still in your clothes from yesterday. But there’s no mud splatter on your shirt from your morning sparring match with Clarisse. You wonder if it just washed itself out. Weirder stuff has happened. 

That hole in your chest from yesterday’s been stitched up, but you can’t explain why. You hang onto the beat you know better than Hazel, Percy, your _own_ , and revel in the comfort that yesterday was a bad dream. Will was right. That notion shouldn’t sour you because it means _Jason’s alive_. Stop sulking and get out of bed. 

You clean and dress yourself, deciding breakfast is in order. You squeeze next to Will at the end of the bench of the Apollo table. “Morning, babe,” Will says, as he says every morning, as though yesterday’s argument didn’t happen. You’ve learned to let things go after Bianca’s whole _you’re gonna die if you don’t loosen up_ but you’re left wondering if you give him too much slack to let him wind you tight with. 

You peer at Will’s plate. “Oatmeal again?” you hum, plucking a plump raspberry from its sticky nest of oats. Next to that is a square of spinach, and a glass of whole milk. Will takes being healthy _very_ seriously. 

“Again?” Will raises an eyebrow. 

“Didn’t you have oatmeal yesterday?” 

“Nope. Yesterday was peanut butter toast and apple slices.” You wrinkle your nose and let it slide. If you’re going to fight with Will, it’s not going to be over a bowl of oatmeal. 

You douse your eggs in sriracha and Will gags. “How else am I supposed to wake up if I’m not allowed to have coffee?” you snap. 

“I never said you’re not _allowed_.” 

“Oh, you don’t need to say it.” 

“Hey, lovebirds! Cut it out.” Clarisse walks over, clapping you on the back. “We’re still on after breakfast?” 

“Yeah, I--” You pause, suddenly very sick. The eggs shimmy down your throat. You blink a few times, trying to shake the feeling that this has all happened before. “Yeah.” 

Your shirt gets muddy by lunch time and you’re wondering if you’re _really_ sick. With a dream this long and lucid, it makes sense. You keep pinching yourself, trying to wake up, reliving familiar bits of dialogue over and over in your brain.  

At three forty, you find yourself in the infirmary helping Will stock and treat some campers with minor injuries. Seven minutes later, you vomit all over the tile floor. “Oh, gross,” says Will again. You’re heaving more, now, and wipe your mouth on the back of your hand. 

“Will, Jason is dead,” you say. He’s mopping the floor and you put your hand over his, surprising him. “He’s dead,” you repeat. 

Will’s brow creases with concern. “You need to get some rest.” 

The same conversation ensures you’re dead asleep. 

You wake up at eight fifteen again. Everything happens all over again. And again. And again. 

It’s the sixteenth time of this maddening cycle, three forty-four in the infirmary, when you grab Will by the hand and say, “Hey, I think your dad is in trouble.” 

He frowns. You’re putting a crink in his perfected schedule, but you’re just enough to give him pause. No more than a question asking, “Do you think so?” He’s skeptical, and you don’t bring up Jason, because he won’t believe you then and maybe he already knows what you’re alluding to. 

“Yes.” A breath. “Jason and Piper are in trouble, too.” 

Will glances at his shoes. “It’s not our quest, Nico.” 

“Please, Will,” you beg, taking his hands. The tick of a clock somewhere is deafening, maddening, taunting you. “Please. Just--believe me. Trust me.” 

Jason would. 

Will only purses his lips. “Okay,” he says. “Let me just get some--” 

You pull him into the nearest shadow, ignoring his indignant yelp. You let it take you across the country to where Jason is. _Please let me make it in time_. Will is shivering when you emerge and his arms are locked, angry, ready to snap at you for being reckless and dragging him into it. 

He’s stopped by the sight of his father crying atop Jason’s horse. Piper screaming while tears stream down her face. 

You see Jason, then, shot full of arrows. His glasses are sliding off his face. There’s wind, lightning, thunder. Everything that makes Jason Jason is loud and here and he’s here, too, tousled golden hair and bright blue eyes and _spear through his chest ripping sinew and tissue and muscle bleeding in in in--_  

You don’t scream. Your lungs don’t have the capacity. You meet his shocked, deadened eyes. The spear slides out of him. “Go,” he says again, numb, no longer to the fleeing Piper and Apollo. He says, go, again, you think. But then you realize his lips are moving to form your name the same time the spear _pierces him again louder and harsher and gurgling and he’s trying to smile and say your name and say everything’s going to be okay_ \-- 

You wake up at eight fifteen screaming your head off. 

You tumble out of bed, tearing at your blankets and sheets and anything you can get your hands on. You drag your mattress past skullish bedposts and collapse next to that stupid, chiming grandfather clock. You run a hand through your sweat damp hair and curse. 

The next several times, you follow the pattern. You write everything down. On your hands, your thighs, your stomach. Annotations. Try to see if you can leave things for yourself next time. Move your sword to the closet, have it appear there the next time around. Notes. Reminders. See how you can change things. 

When you think you’ve got it down, you approach Will before he’s supposed to enter the infirmary. You’re going to show up to save Jason in the nick of time and break this horrible cycle. “I’ll go alone if I have to,” you say to Will, hand outstretched. “But I don’t want to.” 

You really do want him to come. But you also want him to want it. 

You know he doesn’t want it, but he follows you into shadow anyway. 

So, by now you know the drill. Jason dies at three forty-seven in the afternoon. Two minutes and thirty-four seconds before that, he gets Piper and Apollo on Tempest. You show up one minute and fifty-seven seconds before Jason dies. 

“Nico--” Jason gasps out and an arrow strikes his left shoulder. Shit. You’re only dwindling his chances of survival. And the spear hits him forty-eight seconds early and you wake up screaming again. 

This time, you don’t give him a chance to get surprised. You show up with Will and Jason sees you long enough to register your name, to say it aloud. And when you see him you _know_ it’s not the first time he’s seeing you here and you _know_ that he knows this has happened more than once and he knows _you’ve_ been living it with him. 

It takes less than a second to realize that, to say your name. Less than a second for the enemy to get the upper hand. Less than a second for you to slip into shadow. 

It takes two seconds for Jason to realize the spear meant for him is sticking out of your chest. Out, out, out. Slick flesh. And _in_ again, you suck a breath in, the spear goes _in_ , deeper, deeper. Will’s scream fades into static. Static all around you. Jason’s bleeding static, electricity, and everything goes white. 

You’re on the ground, cradled in Jason’s arms. “Why did you--” he chokes out. “You shouldn’t have come for me.” 

Will’s hands are pressed to the gaping hole in your chest, useless, but he’s _trying_ and getting angry because it’s not working and it’s such a potent representation of you both that you want to laugh but the spear hit your lung and blood’s spilling between your teeth, too thick to speak through. 

“Come on, Nico,” Will says, brushing back your hair. “Come on. I’ve got you.” 

“It’s too late,” Jason says quietly. You know he’s right, and you smile weakly at him, blue eyes blinding. Glasses are tipped down his nose, tears bubbling like rage in his throat. “Will, stop. There’s nothing you can do.” 

“Do you expect me to just--just let him _die?!_ ” Will’s voice cracks, his hands stutter over the bandages he’s pulling out of his backpack. “Gods, _do something_ , Jason, help me, please, _gods_ \--” 

“‘S okay, Will,” you mumble through cracked lips. “Sorry… I, I just…” 

You choke and he shakes his head, shushes you gently. “Ssh, Nico, ssh, you’re okay. You’re okay, you’re gonna be fine.” 

Jason’s doubtful statements are the only thing that bring you comfort, and you feel awful. You should be looking at, smiling at, trying to to help your _boyfriend_ , not Jason. But that’s who you’re stuck on, who you’ve always been stuck on. 

Apollo and Piper are worlds away. Will is fading, now, too. You can only see Jason. You reach out your hand, one last, fruitless gesture. Push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. Brush a tear from the corner of his eye with your thumb. 

You die between Jason’s arms and Will’s hands.

  


You watch the world fade from white again to black.

  


You wake up in your Pasadena dorm and crush your alarm clock in a single punch. The crunching sound almost drowns out your frustrated scream. 

You were doing so well. 

You were obedient, you followed Apollo into death and defended him even if you thought maybe you deserved better than dying for a pair of _fucking sandals_ , because anyone’s life is worth more than your own, and you’d do anything to protect Piper.  

And you have no other choice but to live out this nightmare. You accept that there’s no way out of it. You just enjoy what little time you have before Apollo shows up, before you’re stuck like a pig, perfect as a martyr as you were in life. A good boy, a good soldier. 

Good has lost all meaning by now. 

When Nico first shows up, you’re shocked. You’ve lived out every loop as the Sybil has predicted. It’s gone the same way every time, with little to no variation, only altered by your own distinct words and choices. Nothing you do amounts to anything. Never has, and now, you accept, never will. 

You don’t want Nico to watch you die and you don’t want Will there period. You get distracted, easy, and die a little early. That’s okay. You hope this loop was a fluke, some one-in-a-million chance. You can’t handle Nico knowing. Because Nico will try and save you. Because Nico will try to change things. Because you’ve accepted death and if Nico tries to change that, he’ll die, too. 

And he does. He breathes his last breath to _you_ , and he fixed your glasses but now they’re blurry, foggy with tears and Will is mechanical, cold, trying to pretend that Nico’s stilted breaths are because of how tight he’s tying the bandages.  

It’s not. He dies. 

“Your alarm clock’s not looking so hot.” 

You jump out of your skin because you’re sitting on your bed, hand bleeding, clad in just your boxers and the knee high argyles he got you as a belated birthday present, and when Nico lays eyes on you and you’re both _breathing_ and _alive_ for however short a time you try to crack a joke but you just start crying.  

And when you start, you can’t stop. Nico’s already blurry because you don’t have your glasses on--they’re sitting on your bedside table, no cracks, no dents--and it just gets worse. Now you’re blubbering, trying to thank him, trying to scold him, trying to express all those little emotions that culminate into the _fireball_ that burns through your chest everytime Nico crosses your mind. 

“Hey, buddy,” Nico says, awkward. He walks over, stands between your shaking legs, puts his hands on your shoulders. “Hey, buddy.” Softer. Comforting. And then simply, “I’m here, Jason. I’m here.” 

You wrap your arms tight around his middle, head resting under his sharp collarbone. His heartbeat floods your ears, his scent fills your head, he’s _everywhere_ and you can’t get enough. Your hold is so tight, now, it must hurt, but Nico just hugs you back. Just cards through your hair and murmurs until your tears are dry and shaking has stilled. 

“Let me get some clothes on and we’ll talk,” you finally say. Nico sits on your bed and pretends not to watch the muscles of your back ripple as you stretch, nudging your closet open with your foot. You pretend not to notice and flex more on purpose. 

Comfy in sweats and a muscle tee, you sidle up next to him cross legged on the bed. 

“When did you become aware of this?” you ask him. “How long have you been… living through this?” 

He tsks. “Always worrying about me. _You’re_ the one who’s dying.” His breath hitches. Hands tense, scraping the hole in his jeans over his knee. “I don’t know. Fifteen times, maybe more. Had to figure out the pattern before I could try and subvert it.” He sighs. “It still didn’t work.” 

You put a hand above his knee and his jumpy leg stills. He allows it so you let your hand trace the contour of his thigh, warm and gentle as the breeze lilting through the cracked window. “Thank you for trying to save me.” 

“There’s a _but_ coming, isn’t there?” 

You give him a thin smile. “I can’t let you do this for me.” 

“Bullshit. You’re doing it for everyone else.” He grabs your glasses off the nightstand and sets them gently on your nose. He’s so big and clear, you can see the freckles dotting his nose from the sun he’s been getting, you can see his curly lashes, you can see flecks of gold in his dark brown eyes. “Let me help you, Jason. We can figure this out together.” 

You want to kiss him. You just say, “Okay.” 

The loops are more bearable now, if dying can get easier. Nico shows up every morning as soon as you wake up. You tumble out of bed, scramble for your markers and sketchbook. You draw venn diagrams, you make lists, and when you guys get off topic you doodle. Nico really likes it when you do, he says you’re amazing, and usually you’re the one to make _him_ blush, not the other way around. 

It’s a nice change. 

Not just the teasing. But after so long of prescribing your death, now you’re fighting for your life. For Nico’s life. It feels _good_. You start to remember what good feels like. 

You guys get lunch together and pretend it’s a date instead of the last supper. 

You have to take days off because if you don’t, you’ll lose any hope you have left. You run out of steam, ideas, and whatever threads of sanity you’re clinging to. 

You spend these days holed up in your dorm and fill up as much of your sketchbook as you can. Some days Nico is with you, curled into your side. It’s those days you ask about Will, and Nico purses his lips, answering your question by fitting an arm around your waist. 

When Apollo comes knocking, Nico refuses to leave. And it raises questions but neither of them care, even if you feel guilty looking at Piper. We can explain when they’re both alive and well. _When_ we make it out of this, not _if_. 

You watch Nico die too many times to count, because he’s faster than you. On the heels of fastest light is dark shadow, and your wind can’t catch up. It’s satisfying to burn Caligula’s forces into a crisp only so many times. 

Sometimes you make it farther than Caligula. Sometimes you make it to Medea only to watch Apollo bleed out by his own hand, or to suffocate yourself and twitch on the ground, helpless to Nico and Piper’s pleading. 

Nico watches you die and the only reason you don’t like it is how he chokes up, furious and disappointed and _aching_ , feeling the hole in your chest with you, breathing with you, gasping with you, _dying with you_ \-- 

Less often do one of the other parties die. Does Apollo die justice by arrow, does Piper get her throat slit. Does someone _completely unrelated_ appear in the realm of their time bubble (Hazel, does, _once_. You don’t see Nico for the next few loops and you’re glad for it). 

When Reyna gets involved, things go _shittier_ than shit. 

You make it past Caligula and Medea and you think things are going to be okay until she gets involved. 

She doesn’t make it. 

Nico’s screaming and railing on Apollo and you’re just _numb_ because Reyna is the strongest person you know and you’ve been inseparable since you were kids and _you guys were just starting to be okay again_ and now she’s fucking _gone_. 

“Let’s not go,” you say the next morning. 

Nico’s standing over your bed, eyes red from crying hours ago, days ago, so many loops, too many to count. Reyna’s loss has left him angry and hurt and cold. You’re faced with that awful helplessness again, that nothing matters, that you should just give into the loop. You can’t save anyone. You can’t even save youself. 

Nico’s stopped keeping track but you haven’t. It’s been almost a year at this point. And all is numb except your constant, Nico, the only motivation you have to keep going anymore. 

Not even your own life matters at this point. Nico is too tied into this, and you need to know he’ll make it out okay. Which means you’ve got to live. If you don’t live, neither does he. 

He peers at you through shaggy bangs. “What?” His morning voice is hoarse, deep, and it makes your head spin. 

You catch his wrist. “Let’s just stay here today. Just us. Okay?” 

Piper and Apollo will die without you. 

And fuck, you know it, you know how horribly selfish it is to ask them to die in your place _again_ , but all those thoughts disappear when Nico locks the door, draws the curtain, murmurs his consent as he slides in bed next to you. You need to breathe. You need to rest. Then you can pick this all up again and die tomorrow. 

You pull the comforter over you both and cuddle close to him, abandoning all pretense. He’s cold and you’re a furnace. He clings to you and you smile, feeling his hands on your bare back. It’s pleasantly chill, then fades into soft coals. 

“Your bed’s comfy,” Nico says sleepily. 

“That’s why I decided to go to school here, actually,” you joke and Nico slaps your arm. 

His head tucks under your chin. His breath ghosts over your chest and his fingers dance up your spine to the spot on your back where Michael Varus stabbed you. Where a spear should protrude in seven hours. 

The other hand meets that same point on your chest. Nico presses the pads of his fingers down and your eyes flutter shut. “Nico,” you breathe. It’s too light, too wanting for what’s supposed to be between you. 

“Jason,” he replies steadily. He can almost mask the same emotions in his voice, since he’s had so much more practice, but the _nnn_ of your name slips out higher than the rest. 

You hold him for a while longer, branding his hips with your hand. Testing, drifting your fingers further up his shirt or further down the waistband of his skinny jeans. 

“Jason,” he says again, and his voice is still dark and groggy and you _sweat_. He swallows around the cotton in his throat. 

“ _Do you want--_ ” 

“ _I want you_ \--” 

You breathe. Nico doesn’t. 

Instead, his hands find their way from your chest to your chin, to your cheeks, your hair, and he pulls you in for a trembling kiss. His lips are so soft, fluttering against yours, and you hate admitting it’s too gentle for you. Hate that his silk tongue pulls tears from the well of your heart. 

He kisses you like a lover might and you don’t have that kind of time. 

You let things progress slow, lets his hands explore, pry you open, let him mount you and smile when his hips stutter over yours. His eyes flit to the alarm clock and you unplug and toss it into some corner of dirty clothes and crumpled sketches. “Don’t look at the time,” you urge, and he sighs, letting you tug his shirt off. “Don’t think about it.” 

There’s faint marks of ink on his skin. You admire the claw marks on his toned arms, his rockstar bedhead. He looks rugged and it has you undone. 

You flip them and trace your lips down the column of his neck, perfect, sucking a spot just below his ear. “Ja _aay_ \--” He whines and you chuckle, low in your throat, feel him still beneath you and take pleasure and pride in it.  

“Nico,” you say. You love his name, love when he tears it from you with teeth and lips, love the way his own curl into a dirty smirk. 

You don’t get out of bed that day. 

You can’t find it in you to feel regret, even when you wake up alone the next morning. 

You keep going.

  


He keeps you going.

 

It’s years later when you pull the ring off your forefinger and offer it to Jason. Years, how long you’ve been doing this. Decades. 

“It won’t be there tomorrow morning,” you say, voice tight. “But I want this to be a promise. I want to give this to you, tomorrow, too. Every version of tomorrow.” A sweet proposal. A reminder. Ambitious, as they always are. 

Jason’s eyes water red as you tenderly slip it onto his pinky finger, the only one it can accommodate. “Yes,” he breathes and it’s then you realize you forgot to ask if he wants to marry you. But it’s okay because then he takes your cheeks in his hands and steals your breath. You let him. Let him take all of it, you give it willingly, you have for so long. 

He deserves you. 

You’re starting to think you deserve him, too.

  


You think even if this never ends, together is not a bad place to be.


End file.
